the utmost tenderness, and asked him if he was hurt; and Penkridge,
getting up, would, by way of gratitude, have grinned in his face."

"Well, you'd better finish the scene," said Power; "what would Percival
have said?"

"Thunder-and-lightning? Oh! that's easy to decide; he'd have made two
or three quotations; he'd have immediately called the attention of the
form to the fact that Penkridge had been:--

"`Flung by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn
Till noon he fell, from noon till dewy eve;
A winter's day, and as the tea-bell rang,
Shot from the ceiling like a falling star
On the great schoolroom floor.'"

"Would he, indeed?" said Mr Percival, pinching Henderson's ear, as he
came in just in time to join in the laugh which this parody occasioned.

Tea at Saint Winifred's is a regular and recognised institution. There
are few nights on which some of the boys do not adjourn after chapel to
tea at the masters' houses, when they have the privilege of sitting up
an hour and a half later. The masters generally adopt this method of
seeing their pupils and the boys in whom they are interested. The
institution works admirably; the first and immediate result of it is,
that here boys and masters are more intimately acquainted, and being so,
are on warmer and friendlier terms with each other than perhaps at any
other school--certainly on warmer terms than if they never met except in
the still and punishment-pervaded atmosphere of the schoolrooms; and the
second and remoter result is, that not only in the matter of work
already alluded to, but also in other and equally important particulars,
the tone and character of Saint Winifred's boys is higher and purer than
it would otherwise be. There is a simplicity and manliness there which
cannot fail to bring forth its rich fruits of diligence, truthfulness,
and honour. Many are the boys who have come from thence, who, in the
sweet yet sober dignity of their life and demeanour, go far to realise
the beautiful ideal of Christian boyhood. Many are the boys there who
are walking, through the gates of humility and diligence, to certain,
and merited, and conspicuous honour.

I know that there are many who believe in none of these things, and care
not for them; who repudiate the necessity and duty of early godliness;
who set up no ideal at all, because to do so would expose them to the
charge of sentiment or enthusiasm, a charge which they dread m